The 4 Es (no, 5 Es) to Organizational Success
By Andrew Kupperman, Employer Services and Workforce Technology Consultant
If you’ve watched an organizational effectiveness related webinar in the last 5 or 6 years, you’ve undoubtedly come across one of the terms I wanted to talk about in this blog post. But the one thing that’s likely lacking in whatever webinar you watched, is how these terms relate to each other to provide a bigger picture in how you can truly lead an effective organization. My goal in this blog post is to better define these terms and help you understand how they relate and flow between one another.
Engagement
The first term, which has become a nauseating buzz word in business, is engagement. Even before the struggles of the pandemic organizations across the globe have been trying to wrap their arms around how to engage their workforce, because they’ve been told relentlessly by business support vendors, if your employees are not engaged, they will leave. There has been a myriad of solutions presented to “engage” the workforce – gamification, innovative technology, new benefits, etc.
But one thing most organizations fail to think on and realize as part of this process is what engagement really means to an organization. Engagement is something that is subjective, and defined by the organization, not employees. Most organizations liken engagement to the sense that an employee is keyed into the work they’re doing, and maybe even going above and beyond the duties and tasks laid out in their job description. I’ve also seen some organizations define an engaged employee as one who kind of acts like a robot, but I also know most organizations don’t intend it to be characterized that way.
Experience
Moving on to the next E, one of the reasons why organizations might struggle with engagement is because they fail to understand the experience they create for their workforce, which can shape how engaged (remember, as defined by the organization) an employee may end up being. Often organizations think providing a new platform or benefit is the way to shape a better experience, but experience is so much more than the tools and benefits you provide your workforce. Experience also includes (but not exclusive to) things like culture, leadership, relationship with a direct supervisor, interaction with other team members, and training. Everything someone encounters during (or even outside) the hours of work can shape an employee’s experience. Even something like texting an employee after hours plays into their experience. Not knowing the experiences employees have while working for an organization puts the organization at a disadvantage in understanding what an ideal engaged employee looks and feels like.
Expectations
This brings me to the next E, expectations. Most organizations want their employees to have a good experience while they are working for them. Good employee experiences lead to good client experiences, which leads to organizational growth and positive branding. Setting clear and visible expectations is the critical link between engagement and experience. In doing so, you are providing a roadmap for the employee to understand what their experience is going to look like, as well as how expect an employee to engage in the work that is being done at the organization.
Clear expectations also help when something goes wrong, which despite all efforts to set clear expectations, will happen from time to time. Expectations can let the employee know if something goes wrong or wasn’t supposed to happen, that there is way for the employee or the organization to recognize what went wrong (policies and procedures 😊), and how the employee and organization are going to engage in correcting it. This creates trust between an employee and the organization and will hopefully lead to mitigating the employee falling out of engagement, or even worse, making the decision to leave the organization.
Empowerment
So far we’ve learned that setting clear expectations can lead to better experiences, which results in more engaged workforce. This type of environment can foster the next E, empowerment. Truly engaged employees who are trusted and reciprocate that trust are imbued with a sense of empowerment to do better. Through clear expectations and good experiences, psychological safety is created within an organization where employees aren’t afraid to speak up when they see something that can be done a different and better way. Who wouldn’t want to work for an organization where you are empowered to make the work you and your coworkers are engaged with continuously better? An entire workforce of truly empowered workers sounds like a team of superheroes for an organization.
Employees
To the tile of this blog’s point, I’ve talked about the 4 Es, but really there are 5. The last E is employees. Remember, employees are not just engaged robots. The experiences you provide them impacts their entire lives. They are there to help the organization, so setting clear expectations will let them know how they can do that. And lastly, everyone should have a sense of empowerment in whatever they do, to make it a little bit better. This will truly create an effective organization.
- Published in Blog
RISQ Company Book Club “The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe is Tomorrow’s Mainstream”
By Ashley Snodgrass, Employee Benefits Analyst
The RISQ Consulting Team has been proud to sponsor a company book club for the last few years. Our book club has led to many insightful discussions about client experience, productivity, effective meeting structure, team dynamics, leadership and more. Some of these ideas have even led to tangible and beneficial changes in our organization.
Most recently, our team read The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe is Tomorrow’s Mainstream by Amy Webb. Amy Webb is a noted Futurist and founder of the Future Today Institute. Webb works to help companies and individuals understand how to interpret signals as information that can be used in planning for the future. According to the Future Today Institute (FTI) website, FTI works with companies to prepare leaders for “deep uncertainty and complex futures”. Amy Webb wrote The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe is Tomorrow’s Mainstream to bring futurist thinking to a wider audience.
In this book, Webb illustrates a multi-step process in which the reader can test patterns in societal behavior to determine which are more likely to turn into trends or stick long-term, as well as offer insight on how to think like a futurist. Webb also includes helpful graphics and supplemental resources to allow the reader to implement this process in their own organization.
The purpose of reading this book as a team was to encourage discussions about innovation. After reading, members of the book club met and discussed how varying technologies will impact our industry. We also discussed how we can leverage the NEW to benefit our clients and their employees. This resulted in RISQ creating a more robust and tech-forward employee communications package, which has become a high value service to our clients.
You may not be able to adopt all of the great ideas stored between the pages of a book club book, but when you share the experience of reading you are guaranteed to have at least one great outcome; it builds better comradery. And building better comradery is one positive trend that I know will stick around long-term.
As a reminder, if you want to start a book club in your own organization, I recommend checking out this post – for more tips to a successful start. Happy Reading!
- Published in Blog
10 Themes from HR Tech’s Virtual Spring Conference
By Andrew Kupperman, Employer Services and Workforce Technology Consultant
These days everyone seems to have an overabundance of time on their hands, so I’m sure you spent that free time attending HR Executive Magazine’s HR Tech Virtual conference last week. But just in case you found something more interesting to do (which is unlikely), I wanted to share the 10 themes that were presented as organizational imperatives. These are the 10 areas that an organization should dedicate some love and attention to in order to keep doing what they do best for the foreseeable future.
If you haven’t heard of the HR Technology conferences before, they bring together organizational and business thought leaders from all corners of the earth, who talk about the struggles businesses are faced with now, and in the future, and what’s happening within workforce technology to help solve these problems. Check out the link below to the article, 10 Themes From HR Tech Virtual to Help You Prepare for the Coming Decade.
- Published in Blog
The Top 5 Attributes Every Employer Should be Fostering
By Andrew Kupperman, Employer Services and Workforce Technology Consultant
Within just the last year, much has changed relative to the way organizations operate. I feel the most impactful change, which may be felt as a more lasting impression, is the way organizations recruit and retain employees. Some say we’re going through a revolution in the workplace. They liken what’s happening to The Great Depression by calling it the “Great Resignation”.
While these analogies do hit home relative to the sentiments of our times, I’d like to use my own metaphor. What we’re experiencing right now is a Perfect Storm. We have:
An ongoing pandemic. This has forced many business models to shift structure to accommodate remote work, now and in the future.
A shift in generational worker mindset. This has caused a shift in organizational values away from prioritizing the bottom line and towards providing flexibility, meaning, and value to the clients, employees, and community that an organization serves.
A transformation in compensation mindset. This is forcing organizations to consider their strategy and practices related to pay equity, pay equality, and pay gaps.
How organizations alter course relative to this Perfect Storm can determine if they sink or swim. Below are some of the employee attributes I believe are best suited to weather the storm and help an organization find calmer seas.
Adaptability
The changes we’ve faced over the last almost 2 years have forced many into personal and professional changes they weren’t ready for nor were they expecting. Those who are riding out this big wave of change are doing so mainly because they’ve kept open minds about change, found effective coping mechanisms, and remembered that change is the only thing that’s constant.
Having adaptability attributes will only put an organization in a better position to tackle future change, which is inevitable. Employees who can easily adapt can also help those who are change adverse understand and jump the “what’s in it for me” hurdle, which seems to be a constant barrier for those who don’t react well to having change forced upon them.
Innovation
As we seem to be in a flux of constant change, organizations that are rising to the top are not just those that are weathering the storm – they are riding those tall waves to new heights. Love him or hate him, Elon Musk has just successfully sent civilians to space through his SpaceX program. Being a billionaire has its perks, though Mr. Musk probably doesn’t achieve this feat without some of the most innovative talent on his team.
Having employees who want to help create something new and can think out-of-the-box to get there (even in the middle of a perfect storm), can only help organizations develop innovative products and services that provide new value to who they serve.
Emotional Intelligence
We’ve all been through a lot over the last 2 years. Having employees who can be sympathetic and empathetic to other’s plights, can help other employees feel cared for and supported through times of need. You’d hope most organizations practice this throughout their various hierarchies, but many businesses have faced difficult decisions recently. Having the attribute of emotional intelligence widely spread within an organization can only help those facing turmoil, be able to feel supported enough to get through it. If your organization as a whole is able to do this, it’s leaving lasting positive impressions for that employee.
Accountability and Clarity
These attributes may be tough for many organizations to identify because they might not have built a great structure to help keep employees accountable in the first place. Focusing on these attributes and identifying who (whether in or outside of an organization) consistently sets clear expectations of themselves based on organizational needs, and then holds themselves to these expectations is a huge blessing. These individuals need to become example setters within any organization, especially in times of disruption and change.
Many employees might question that the organization owns the role to set expectations and keep employee accountable, so organizations need to consider a thoughtful way to approach the fact that these are highly valued attributes, and how to properly encourage and recognize positive outcomes when employees display creating clarity and accountability.
Valuing Own Needs
This is no longer your grandad’s workplace environment. The shift in what’s valued when someone chooses to work with an organization has changed. Organizations that don’t pivot based on this shift will become obsolete because eventually they won’t be able to find employees who want to work for them. Finding employees who understand and can communicate what they value is a key component to the shift we’ve seen. Organizations can’t identify what their employees’ value in a vacuum. Employees must be able to communicate their needs.
Whether it’s flexibility, community and social awareness, or work-life balance, employees who can clearly express these values and hold themselves and the organization accountable (see prior attribute) when these values are being abused, can only help themselves as well as the organization in meeting these values. I feel the need to ask, would you rather work with someone who can stand up for their values or someone who’d let you walk all over them?
Finding and fostering these attributes may be different than how your organization recruits new employees, or even considers what attributes currently exist across employees. But being able to identify them, and more importantly, encourage them to be used, may just be the ticket to getting to those calmer seas. Happy sailing!
- Published in Blog